How Gentle Movements Help You, Your Horse & Dog Feel Safe Happy #110

Did you know that movement is one of the most powerful ways to help you and your animals feel safer, more confident, and deeply relaxed? Most people focus on training or exercise, but true well-being often comes from making small, mindful changes—not pushing harder.

In this episode of Easier Movement, Happier Life, we explore how the Feldenkrais Method® and Debono Moves offer a unique, hands-on approach to easing tension, supporting the nervous system, and creating lasting change—not just in your horse or dog, but in you too!

You’ll learn:

✅ How the Feldenkrais Method® helps humans move with greater ease and awareness
✅ How Debono Moves can reduce tension and anxiety in horses and dogs
✅ Why attentive movement—not just exercise—is key to improving well-being
✅ How the nervous system learns through gentle, exploratory movements
✅ A simple, hands-on approach you can start using today

By introducing mindful movement, you can create a sense of safety, ease, and connection that benefits both you and your animals. Whether you’re working with a reactive horse, an anxious dog, or simply want to move with more comfort yourself, this episode is packed with insights from the Feldenkrais Method® and Debono Moves to help you all feel and move better.

Have you noticed how movement affects your animal’s mood and confidence? Drop a comment or send me a message—I’d love to hear from you! And if you enjoy this episode, please share it with a fellow animal lover.

TRANSCRIPT: 

Welcome to Easier Movement, Happier Life for you, your horses and dogs. This is the podcast where you'll learn how to create greater ease, connection and well being in your life and with your animals. Whether you have a horse, a dog or both, this podcast will provide you with practical tools to improve movement, balance and confidence for you and your animals. I'm Mary Debono, Feldenkrais teacher, international clinician and best selling author.

With over 30 years of experience, I'm excited to share insights that can help you and your animals move more freely, live more joyfully and connect on a deeper level. Thank you for being here. Now let's dive in. Hello and welcome to Easier Movement Happier Life. I'm Mary Debono and today we're going to dive into something I've seen time and time again. How self awareness, whether through the Feldenkrais method for humans or Debono Moves for animals, doesn't just provide temporary relief, but it can provide lasting transformation.

So think about this. Have you ever noticed, like after a massage or a stretching session, you felt good for a while, but then things went back to how they were? And that's because those methods are focused primarily on changing your structure. They don't engage with the nervous system the same way that approaches like Feldenkrais Method and Debono Moves do. We have to remember the nervous system is your control center of your body.

Approaches that focus mostly on structure. Again, they don't change the way your nervous system responds to the environment. But when we introduce new sensory and movement awareness in a very mindful, exploratory way, we help the nervous system learn and learn something positive. And that learning is what leads to long lasting change. And so the individual, whether it's you, your horse or your dog, you're always an active participant in the process.

This isn't something passive, okay? It's not something that's done to you. For example, if you're a horse or a dog, it's done with you. And if you're a human, if you're doing the Feldenkrais, what we call awareness through movement lessons, right, you're paying close attention to how you move. You're not watching tv, you're not listening to a podcast, not just one, you're. You're active in it, okay? It's gentle, it's relaxing.

Occasionally you might fall asleep if it's a really slow lesson. But it's a learning process. It's not, it's not something that you just kind of go through, okay? It's all about engaging with your nervous system. So, and then if you're, if you're doing the Debono Moves with your horse or your dog, it's similar. In other words, you're engaging with your horse or your dog in a way that both of you are very attentive.

Your nervous systems are really connected and engaged with one another. This is huge. And it also leads to this idea of kind of like attunement with each other. And that's why I think it deepens your connection so much. And it's such a wonderful way to help you and your animal really reduce stress and reduce your anxiety, even in different situations that go beyond just the session. Okay, this is what we're after.

We're after long lasting change. We're after transformation, basically. Okay, so let's think about this a little bit more. Let's think about what self awareness is. Okay, so you can consider. Self awareness is like the ability to understand, to both observe and understand your thoughts, your emotions, your physical sensations, what you're doing presently, what you feel in the present moment. So it's like an internal awareness of how you move, how you feel and how you respond to your environment.

So what happens is you start to recognize habits and patterns and areas that you want to improve. So again, you become more aware of yourself. I like to think then you become more connected with yourself, more connected to your true nature, and you get rid of habits and patterns that are no longer serving you. And in the context of the bono moves, for animals, it goes way beyond like an intellectual understanding.

It's about felt experience. It's about how the animal, the horse, the dog, the cat can feel in the present moment and how they can change that. So I'll give you an example. I often work with horses that have different levels of anxiety, sometimes high anxiety. And my own horse, Breeze was a perfect example of this. When I adopted him, he had been passed around to numerous people. He had some really horrible trauma in his life with some really ignorant, we'll call them people and things like that.

So he didn't even like to be groomed. And, and I come across this with lots of horses, by the way, that horses that are very well cared for, that are very well loved, but they get very anxious about grooming and they just move away from it. They haven't learned to, to feel that, you know what, like how grooming can feel really good. By the way, this is true with dogs as well.

My dog Tony is a perfect example. When we adopted him, you know, he was an adult, he was a Street dog from Mexico. He wanted no part of grooming and now he asks for it all the time. Right. But I helped him get there. Same thing with my horse Breeze. Same thing with many other horses I've worked with. And what so important is that you, for example, you do the Debonomoves and the podcast.

I can't go into too much detail in today's podcast episode about what the Bono moves are. So you might want to look back at previous episodes because I do go into detail, more detail, and give you some resources around them. But if you help the animal feel more comfortable in a situation. So let's go back to the grooming. I wouldn't put the horse in the grooming area to do this.

I would find a place where the horse is already more relaxed. Maybe the horse has never completely relaxed around humans. Again, my horse Breeze was a good example of that. But you find the place where they're the least stressed that could be in their own paddock. Or the horse sometimes comes into a stall or someplace kind of neutral. And then by doing hands on work with the horse in a very respectful way, in a way again, that's really responsive, where you're looking at the animal's responses, you're really observing how they're responding and you're adjusting what you're doing.

So again, your horse is a co creator of it or your dog is a co creator, you're paying attention to their responses so that you're both active participants in the process. What you can do then is you can change how that animal feels in the moment, how they physically feel, which changes then their emotional mental state. So by doing that now suddenly the horse's nervous system or the dog's nervous system recognizes that they have more options in life.

It's like, oh, I can feel this way. I could kind of let my guard down. Then you can start transferring that in the, in the example I'm using with a horse who is worried about grooming, for example, stressed about grooming and saddling up, you can then maybe then go to the grooming area gradually. This isn't going to probably happen in one session. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does, but often it doesn't.

And then without bringing out any grooming tools, you again help the horse get into that state. So they realize, oh, I can feel differently in this environment that I'm in. This is huge. And by the way, I mentioned they're saddling up because a lot of horses have anxiety about that and they show it to various degrees. Some are very dramatic. About it. Some they're more quiet, but they're very anxious and uncomfortable with it.

I have a whole program, like a whole thing that if you, if you enter into, you know, if you join my move with your horse program, foundations program, we go into detail on how you can help a horse get over that and actually learn to enjoy saddling up. And again this, the same ideas apply to dogs, like lots of dogs. Again, they don't like their nails clip, they don't like their teeth brushed, or they don't like to be brushed in general, whatever, you can help them with that through this work.

But anyway, so getting back to the horse, so then the horse's nervous system experiences like being in this environment in a relaxed state. Well now suddenly that's a new option for the horse and that can transfer to other places as well. So you start to build on this. Okay, you start to build on this. But the key thing is you help the animal feel differently to experience something different in their body, which then changes the emotional state as well.

Okay? This is super, super important. This is very different than just. And I'm not diminishing things like massage or anything like that. They're helpful in other ways. But if we want that transformation, right, we need to really talk to the nervous system. And that's what we do in the Debonomoves for animals and also in the Feldenkrais method for humans. Okay, so, and again, when we develop the self awareness, we're helping enhance resilience, adaptability, right?

Freedom of movement, all kinds of wonderful things. So there becomes then more comfort and confidence in their body as well. And again, that transfers to the emotional state. So let's talk then about neuroplasticity just for a minute. All that means is it's your brain's ability to change, to adapt based on experience. Your horse has a brain that also has neuroplasticity, is neuroplastic, as they call it, and so does your dog and your other animals as well.

It's really amazing how that is such a powerful force. Remember, our brains are changing all the time. What we want to do is we want through these mindful experiences again through Feldenkrais for you Di Bono moves for your animals. You want to help kind of guide that neuroplasticity in a way that will enhance the quality of life for yourself and your animals. Okay, so getting back to real life examples.

So if we think about that anxious horse, maybe you've done all the things, the calming supplements, you changed the diet, you obviously had a Vet exam to rule out ulcers and other medical conditions. That's super, super important. But then what people want to do a lot of times I see is they. They start to either restrain the animal and. Or correct the animal, like discipline or quote, unquote, train the animal.

So restrain or train, right? That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to shut down what the animal is feeling, okay? Which does not work. It will backfire. First of all, it's. To me, that's cruel to do to the animal, right? It leads to that state of, like, learned helplessness. We see that a lot in horses and in dogs as well. You know, it's sort of like you just flood them and force them to be a certain way.

We're not doing that here. We're not doing that. What we're doing is we're giving them actually quite the opposite. We're expanding their range of possibilities, their range of options, okay? This is very, very different. We're not trying to force them into a certain way of being, a certain way of standing still or trying to get them to relax. We're not doing that. You know, once the animal feels again, these changes in the body, the nervous system, the animal's nervous system starts to realize they don't have to brace all the time.

They don't have to be on guard all the time. It's a really beautiful, beautiful thing. So, for example, I'll give you a dog example. So I recently worked with a senior dog, and he'd been slowing down. Of course, he was taken to the vet, had a full workup, you know, and it's like, yeah, there's more arthritis due to his age, things like that. But it wasn't just that he was physically slowing down.

He seemed to kind of start being more emotionally withdrawn as well. And that often goes hand in hand with changes in one's mobility. Okay? So I worked with the person to help them learn how to do the Debono Moves with their dog. And it was so fascinating because not only did the dog, you know, have more mobility afterwards, but that connection, that spark, that vitality started to come back.

And this gave the human and the dog this wonderful bonding experience again. And of course, they were bonded. I mean, the man loved his dog and the dog loved the guy, but things had been shifting a little bit again because of changes probably in how the dog felt physically. Dog got more withdrawn, but this gave them both a way to connect with each other. It was really quite beautiful and had real tangible results.

Like in Other words, it wasn't just me noticing the difference in the dog's mobility. The person did too. He, he, he noticed lots of things and the dog wanted to go on more walks and was more just engaged with life again. So these are things that, yes, we have to respect that the dog is getting older or we are getting older, things change. And there are things we can do to enhance quality of life and to bring that vitality and that spark back.

In the case of an anxious, sensitive animal, we can also do things that will help calm the nervous system and not just tamp down anxiety, but have more options in how the animal responds to things. So it's not about shutting down, it's more about opening up, which is really beautiful because then you'll see your animals, your horse or your dogs true nature come out, which is really kind of cool because just like when you try to tamp down something and you try to force an animal to be a certain way, animals that have kind of learned to be really reactive, maybe they were born with greater sensitivity, for sure, but they've also kind of learned to be super reactive in a, in a negative way, like in a harmful way to themselves, in an anxious way.

But then you might find some really beautiful experiences when they've learned, I don't have to be that afraid, right. And so more, more playfulness, for example, might come out. I've seen that a lot. And I saw that with my own horse, Breeze, which was really, really cool. And he went from a horse that people used to complain about all the time when he was, you know, someone else had them, to being a very enthusiastic horse that wanted to engage, wanted to engage with people.

So very cool. So now let's take the conversation to you for a minute here. So for you, the process is similar. So if you've started to feel really stiff or restriction, restricted or anxious, you probably felt more stressed as well, right? You didn't have that lightness, that joy, right? That just feeling of like you want to go out and, you know, crush it, as people say, right? But when you learn, and you can learn this through the Feldenkrais method that I teach, when you learn to move in an easier, more comfortable way, you suddenly have this like, greater confidence in body and mind.

It just transfers because there is no separation between body and mind. Okay? They inform each other, right? They're, they're, They' you know, connected. They're, they're one in the same, really. You're one organism. So again, when you're, when you improve your, your Movement, right? And how you feel. And you enlarge your, you know, range of possibilities, your options in life, you get those benefits like your horse or your dog does as well.

And the more options you have for movement, the more resilient you become as well. Okay? So that's why I think it's just so fun to see this. I see this in my students all the time. I've certainly experienced it myself. When you again expand your range of what's possible, movement wise, suddenly it's like you have more creative ideas, you just feel lighter. Just all kinds of new things start to open up for you.

So it's very, very cool. And now, in case someone is asking, even though I think I covered this already, but you think, isn't this just another form of relaxation? I want to emphasize that. No, it's not. Yes, you may feel more relaxed. Your dog, your horse may certainly feel more relaxed if you're doing the Debonomoves with them. But again, I want to emphasize this is not just about relaxation.

There's lots of ways to relax, right? You can do all kinds of deep breathing or lovely massage or essential oils or, you know, lots of, lots of different ways. Music, meditation, fantastic ways to relax, right? Not, not dissing any of those. And same thing with the animals. There's ways we can help them simply to relax. This isn't about just relaxing. It's about actually being able to be more active, active in the world in a positive way.

And what I like to call, like, it's sort of like relaxed responsiveness or relaxed readiness. Like you can act, you can move, you can, you can run, you can jump, you can simply reach for some, whatever it is. It's not like you're just in this, oh, relaxed state, right? It not at all. It's like you're actually more able to move from this state to, you know, to act, to enjoy your life.

So again, it's not just about relaxation. It's about more functional use of yourself. And really what it is, it's about reprogramming your nervous system or your dog or your horse's nervous system. It's about again, providing new options, you know, and it's like this relaxed readiness or relaxed responsiveness sort of becomes your default state. Instead of stress being your default state or your horse or your dog's default state.

It's like this relaxed responsiveness is your default state. You can get there, so can your animal. So again, I want to say it's not just about loosening tight muscles. Yes, that happens. And that Feels really good. And that's super, super. And you know, you and your animal will move much more freely. All that good stuff. That's what it's designed to do as well. But it's about teaching your nervous system a new way to exist in the world.

One that's more comfortable, more confident, and more adaptable. Again, this is. This applies to you and your animals. So how can you start incorporating this in your own life? Okay, well, if you're working with your horse or your dog, don't just look for big shifts, okay? What's really important is that this is what I teach my students in the move with your horse courses or the grow young with your dog book is you're noticing small things.

You're noticing a shift in the breath. You're noticing how they hold their head. You're noticing their eyes. Is there tension? Are there wrinkles in the face? Okay, you're noticing small signs of just, like, ease. And you're noticing those subtle indicators that tell you that the nervous system is. Is learning something positive. So that's really important. I would tell you to start there. Start to be more attentive to those small shifts in your animals.

Okay, and now for you. Do a little tiny movement experiment right now. Okay? Now please don't do this if you're driving your car or anything else, or, you know, just do this if you're in a safe place. If you're driving your car, you know, while you're listening, wait till later to do this. But right now, very, very gently turn your head. You can choose the direction, but turn your head a small amount only.

Go as far as it's completely easy to do. Right? No stretching, no straining. You're just going to turn your head a little bit in one direction to where it's easy. You're going to just kind of make a mental note of how far you go in that direction. Okay? So it's like you just want to look over one shoulder, but again, no stretching or straining. Now close your eyes.

Breathe easily. And now several times, just imagine turning your head in that same direction. Okay? Just imagine it. And just imagine it in a really delightful, easy way. Maybe just think of, like, your neck has, like, ball bearings and you're just moving in this incredibly easy way. You're just imagining it at this point. You're breathing easily. Maybe each time you move your head, you're your exhale, okay? And notice if you feel a subtle response in your jaw.

What do you notice in your jaw? What do you notice around your eyes? Can you release any unnecessary tension. Okay? Now the next time you come back, even in your mind, to the middle, pause for a moment, Just breathe easily. And now with your eyes still closed, just glide your eyes in the opposite direction. And then you are turning your head. So if you were turning your head to the right, you're going to glide your eyes to the left as you turn your head the tiniest amount to the right.

Tiniest amount. It's just like barely past a thought. It's almost imaginary. Somebody looking at you probably wouldn't see anything. Okay? So you're going to do that several times. And of course, the eyes come back to the middle when the head comes back to the middle. And then they both go in opposite directions again, but you're only moving your head a tiny amount, okay? Really tiny. Breathing easily. Remember that, okay?

Now next time you come back to the middle, let your eyes lead the way to your original direction. So if you were going to the right, you let your eyes lead the way to the right, you turn your head to the right and you come back. Of course, if you were originally going to the left, you turn to the left. Now notice if it felt easier, was something smoother, maybe you went further.

And, and you have to remember too, it's not just about the size of the movement we care about. We care about the quality of the movement, the feeling of ease, okay? Then the size of the movement, expand, okay? But the feeling of ease is what's paramount. Okay? So, and the last thing I'll say is we have to recognize that, yes, we can improve quickly, okay? That is for sure.

You may have, most of you probably noticed an improvement just now from those few moments of doing that with awareness, with attention. But just like anything else, improvements can take time. So they can take weeks, they can take months. I mean, you have to respect your timeline and process and your animals timeline and process, okay? It's super, super important. We're not trying to impose anything on anyone. You're working with who you are, who your animal is, and your life experiences, whether a history of injuries or structural things, you know, whatever it is.

So we need to respect that. Need to respect that. So just be, you know, kind of have fun with it. Be curious when you're working with yourself and your animals, you know, have that sense of curiosity and the feeling that you're connecting. That's what's important. It's like you're connecting your nervous system with your animal's nervous system and you're going on this journey to improvement together. So that you both can improve.

So important. So I hope today's episode gave you the chance to see self awareness in a new way. To see how you and your animal can improve. You can reduce your anxiety or animals anxiety, you can move more freely. All these wonderful things and that like small gentle changes can lead to deep lasting transformation. So if you enjoyed today's episode or any of the episodes, I'd be so grateful.

If you left a review and you subscribed, it helped us reach more animals and their people. And if you know someone else who could benefit from this episode, please share it with them. Again I'd be so grateful. So thank you so much for joining me today. Remember, you and your animal deserve to feel great together. I look forward to talking to you again real soon. Bye for now.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Easier Movement. Happier Alike for you, your horses and dogs. Have you grabbed your free videos yet? We have a series of easy, effective videos to help you and your animals improve mobility, comfort and confidence. If you're a rider, check out the rider [email protected] Ryder and for you dog lovers, visit marydevono.com lovedog for free videos on how to help your dog using gentle, effective hands on processes.

Thank you again for being here. I can't wait to connect with you in the next episode. Until then, take care and remember, movement is key to a happier life for you and your animals. Bye for now.